The double-edged sword of cheap gas

We're trying to get to 54.5 mpg by 2025, but $2 fuel makes it difficult. Should we be thankful gas isn't even cheaper?

There it is! Less than $2 a gallon, in many parts of the U.S. today.
(Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr)

I
wish I'd taken a picture. $1.99 per gallon gas at a station near me today. Cheap
gas has had a number of positive benefits: It helps the economy, makes it
easier for average folks to make their commutes and meet their bills and it
sticks it to Big Oil.

But
there are negatives as well. Electric car sales — nearly flat for 2015 — tend to suffer.
And people not only drive more (vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, is up again),
but they buy bigger cars and trucks. Small car sales are down, and the hot
category for automakers is the crossover SUV.

The Nissan Juke, recommended by Car and Driver, may be ugly but it gets 26 mpg in the city, 31 on the highway. Crossover mpg is improving. (Photo: Nissan)

According
to Michael Sivak, a researcher at the University of Michigan's Transportation
Research Institute, "After the average vehicle fuel economy [of the
American fleet ]
improved by 5.7 mpg from October 2007 to August of 2014 (from 20.1
mpg to 25.8 mpg), it decreased by 0.8 mpg through November of 2015 (to 25.0
mpg). The main culprit for the recent drop in fuel economy is the
decreased price of gasoline."

The
latter trends are also on the mind of Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate
Campaign. "Automakers are no longer improving mileage and emissions,
threatening the success of the 54.5 mpg clean-car program," he told me. "The
auto industry is exploiting the program's loopholes to boost gas-guzzler
production and thwart the rules. They're making more SUVs, and other light
trucks, than cars because trucks have weaker standards than cars, and more large
vehicles because large vehicles have weaker standards than smaller vehicles."

Becker's conclusions are
based on the latest Environmental Protection Agency "Trends" and "Compliance" reports, released this week. For 2014 model-year cars, the Trends report finds
an average "real world" carbon dioxide emission rate of 366 grams per mile, "which
is unchanged from model year 2013." We need these numbers to get continuously
better if we're going to meet targets.

The tiny Chevrolet Spark, a nice ride with 39 mpg on the highway, is threatened by cheap gas. At $4 a gallon, people would be buying these in droves. (Photo: Chevrolet)

Of course, the EPA puts a nice
spin on it all. New vehicle carbon emission rates, it said, "remain at the
lowest ever recorded in the Trends database, and likely the lowest rate of all
time." Meanwhile, new car fuel economy is "at the highest level ever recorded,
and likely the highest of all time."

The
Compliance report offers an optimistic projection from EPA. Some 26 percent of
model year 2015 vehicles "already meet the model year 2018 CO2 emissions targets,
or can meet them with the addition of expected air conditioning improvements." It added that 3 percent of 2015 production could even meet the 2025 CO2
targets — the holy grail.

Becker argues that this is compliance in name only. "While
the auto industry may crow that it is technically in compliance, the bottom
line is that automakers are no longer improving mileage and emissions. After
all, cutting pollution is the real purpose of the rules. And automakers have
stopped cutting pollution."

The 2016 Cadillac Escalade: It still looks like a gas guzzler, and it still is one. (Photo: Cadillac)

There's
a certain glass half-full, half-empty thing going on here. The Union of
Concerned Scientists, which bows to no one in its concern about climate change,
is encouraged by the progress. According to Dr. David Cooke, an analyst at the
UCS clean vehicles program, the EPA reports "show that manufacturers are not
just meeting, but exceeding, the emissions standards. Manufacturers are ahead
of compliance for the third year in a row, and they’re exceeding the standards
by the greatest margin to date."

But
Cooke acknowledges the dark side. Consumers, he said, "are often choosing
larger models, like SUVs and crossovers." But again, there's some light. Today's gas
guzzlers, UCS notes, aren't quite as gas guzzly as they used to be. There's a 10 percent fuel efficiency improvement
from five years ago, and "they're getting better every year."

I'm in-between here. I still don't like SUVs, and a 10 percent improvement isn't huge.
Let's take a look at some popular models, why don't we? Buy the 2015 Jeep Grand
Cherokee SRT8 4WD,
and it will get 13 mpg in the city. 13! Highway is 19, for
an average of 15. That's pretty pathetic.

Or how
about a Cadillac Escalade ESV 4WD? Now we're at
a mere 14 in the city, 20 on
the highway and 16 combined. At $2 a gallon, owners aren't feeling the pain of
those terrible numbers.

To be
fair, it's the smaller crossovers that people are buying in bulk. But despite many
technological gains — start-stop systems, direct injection, cylinder
deactivation, small engine turbocharging — economy gains are erased when people
opt out of small cars and into bigger ones.

Ultimately,
we can do better than flat CO2 emissions. Here's a local TV report on $2 a gallon gas, from Massachusetts: